Debating medieval Europe DDMMEE..iinnddbb 11 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 DDMMEE..iinnddbb 22 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 c c Debating medieval Europe The early Middle Ages, . 450– . 1050 Edited by Stephen Mossman Manchester University Press DDMMEE..iinnddbb 33 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 Copyright © Manchester University Press 2020 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 1732 8 paperback ISBN 978 1 5261 1733 5  First published 2020 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Front cover: London, British Library, Stowe MS 944, fol. 9r (© The British Library Board). Typeset in Cambria by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby, UK Contents Contributors Acknowledgements vi vii Stephen Mossman How to use this book: a guide for students 1 c c Craig H. Caldwell III 1 The transformation of the Roman world, . 450– . 550 12 Paul Fouracre 2 The Successor States, 550–750 35 Dame Janet L. Nelson 3 The Carolingian moment 63 Translatio imperii T. J. H. McCarthy 4 : Ottonian Germany 97 Paul Fouracre 5 Feudal revolution? Transformations around the year 1000 125 Charles Insley 6 Vikings and the ‘Age of Iron’ in the North Sea 150 7 Early medieval Spain, 800–1100: the Christian kingdoms Robert Portass and al-Andalus 176 8 England and the Atlantic archipelago: from Alfred to the Charles Insley Norman Conquest 226 c c Paul Oldfield 9 The Norman world, . 1000– . 1100 264 Index 300 v DDMMEE..iinnddbb 55 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 Contributors Craig H. Caldwell III is Associate Professor of History at Appa- lPaacuhli aFno Sutraatec rUeniversity is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the UChnaivrelressi tIyn solfe Myanchester is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the Univer- sTi.t Jy. Hof. MMacnCcahretshtyer Stephen Mossm aisn Professor of History at New College of Florida is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the UDnaimveer sJaitnye otf L M. Naneclshoenster is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at KPainugl’ sO Cldoflileeglde London is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the Univer- sRiotyb oefr tM aPnocrhtaesstser is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Lincoln vi DDMMEE..iinnddbb 66 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 Acknowledgements This textbook, the first of two volumes, may bear my name as editor, but is very much a collective enterprise, and one in which my colleagues at Manchester University Press, especially Emma Brennan and Meredith Carroll, have invested tremendous time and effort. I am hugely grateful to them both for all their work, their good counsel and their patience. The authors of the chapters in this volume, at the University of Manchester and beyond, have all given generously of their time and expertise in preparing their contributions, and in being prepared to engage in the pedagogical experiment that this textbook represents. I have Paul Fouracre and Nick Simons to thank for their insight in talking through the concept that underpins this textbook when the project was in its earliest genesis. Leif Jerram, Maddy Mossman, Paul Oldfield and Pippa Stannard were kind enough to read my introductory chapter on how to use this book, and to offer critical commentary, making it in the process something that students might actually read and even find useful. Stephen Mossman Berlin, March 2020 vii DDMMEE..iinnddbb 77 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 DDMMEE..iinnddbb 88 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399 How to use this book: a guide for students Stephen Mossman This book is aimed at students who are beginning the study of medieval history at university. It is the first of a two-volume set that will cover the western (‘Latin’) area of the European land-mass across the entire chronological span of the Middle Ages, from the mid-fifth to the mid-fifteenth centuries. To use the technical language, that means from late antiquity to the Renaissance, when re-naissance status-minded Italians declared that in them and in their cities classical antiquity had been re-born (hence ), and the medium aevum 1,000 or so years since the fall of the Western Roman Empire could medi-eval safely be classified as an intermediary period, a (‘Middle Age’, hence ), that was now over, to general relief and satisfaction. You will immediately grasp that the intellectual foundations upon which ‘the medieval’ is defined as a coherent period are shaky at best, and that they have more to do with the civic pride of those compatriots of Leonardo and Michelangelo than with the application of robust historical method. As most students who encounter medieval history at university do so on the basis of no prior knowledge – just as with so many new chronological periods, geographical areas and methodological approaches with which a student of history must get to grips for the first time – securing an understanding of what ‘the medieval’ is all about is no mean feat. That task can feel as if you are suddenly required to absorb a great mass of knowledge about an entirely alien world. This textbook does not aim to provide you with a narrative presentation of events. There are some excellent narrative studies already, and it is extremely useful to have to hand a reliable account of just what happened when, to whom. Yet if your first encounter with medieval history is through a dense narrative, this can mean that the subject as a whole can seem like an impenetrable thicket of dates and 1 DDMMEE..iinnddbb 11 2233//1100//22002200 1133::2288::3399